Trials of an Event Law-aison

The trials of a second-year law student at the University of Alberta.

Fox IP Moot

Sophia Peng - Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Back in mid-February, I participated in the Harold G. Fox Intellectual Property Moot in Toronto where we (me along with three other U of A classmates) argued a hypothetical case against other Canadian law schools. It was a really fun experience to meet other students and judges, practice our written and oral advocacy skills, and learn about IP law while doing our moot preparations.

We got the moot problem back in November, which was a pretty crazy time right before final exams so most teams had to do research and writing (as much as we could!) over the winter holidays. Needless to say, our appellant team (my partner and I) had to really scramble to get the written submission done since it was due one week after school started in January. The respondent teams' written stuff was due about two weeks later so they had to be very efficient too. The oral arguments took place at the Federal Courthouse in Toronto in front of judges from the Ontario and Federal Courts, so that was a very neat experience. They asked tough questions for both sides but also gave good feedback afterwards.

Before the moot, I haven't been to Toronto in 10 years and I've forgotten how busy and huge that city is. We were only there for three nights and our event schedule was pretty packed so I didn't get to do much looking around and stayed mostly in the downtown area around the financial district. A couple of guys from our U of A team made a quick visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame but I went to have coffee with a childhood friend I haven't seen in a while. The organizers fed us well and I think I only had to use my U of A per diem two or three times in Toronto. The moot participants, coaches judges, and organizers had a lunchtime talk with David Vaver, and it was awesome to meet Justice Rothstein (SCC) and Judge Rader (US CAFC) at the awards dinner. They are incredibly pleasant people. The main sponsor of the moot gave each of us a massive, customized textbook by Dimock on Remedies (the online version on Westlaw was super useful for our moot prep) and a book bag (even more useful now that the moot is over). It was fitting that the main issue in our moot was on IP remedies, which I actually find interesting and important, but also very specialized and somewhat underdeveloped in Canada compared to other areas of law.

I'm really glad I did a competitive moot and I recommend it. You get to polish up your advocacy skills and learn to focus your arguments, not to mention have an all-expenses paid (by your law school) trip to visit another city. I think meeting other law students, lawyers, and judges and arguing a case in different environment helps build interest in the law.

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